To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: Sermons
I. LIFE'S PERIODS (ITS BEGINNING AND CLOSE) ARE APPOINTED BY GOD. The sacredness of birth and death are brought before us, as we are assured that "there is a time to be born, and a time to die." The believer in God cannot doubt that the Divine Omniscience observes, as the Divine Omnipotence virtually effects, the introduction into this world, and the removal from it, of every human being, Men are born, to show that God will use his own instruments for carrying on the manifold work of the world; they die, to show that he is limited by no human agencies. They are born just when they are wanted, and they die just when it is well that their places should be taken by their successors. "Man is immortal till his work is done." II. LIFE'S OCCUPATIONS ARE DIVINELY ORDERED. The reader of this passage is forcibly reminded of the substantial identity of man's life in the different ages of the world. Thousands of years have passed since these words were penned, yet to how large an extent does this description apply to human existence in our own day! Organic activities, industrial avocations, social services, are common to every age of man's history. If men withdraw themselves from practical work, and from the duties of the family and the state, without sufficient justification, they are violating the ordinances of the Creator. He has given to every man a place to fill, a work to do, a service of helpfulness to render to his fellow-creatures. III. THE EMOTIONS PROPER TO HUMAN LIFE ARE OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT. These are natural to man. The mere feelings of pleasure and pain, the mere impulses of desire and aversion, man shares with brutes. But those emotions which are man's glory and man's shame are both special to him, and have a great share in giving character to his moral life. Some, like envy, are altogether bad; some, like hatred, are bad. or good according as they are directed; some, like love, are always good. The Preacher of Jerusalem refers to joy and sorrow, when he speaks of "a time to laugh, and a time to weep;" to love and hate, for both of which he declares there is occasion in our human existence. There has been no change in these human experiences with the lapse of time; they are permanent factors in our life. Used aright, they become means of moral development, and aid in forming a noble and pious character. IV. THE OPERATION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS APPARENT IN THE VARIED FORTUNES OF HUMANITY. This passage tells of accumulation and consequent prosperity, of loss and consequent adversity. The mutability of human affairs, the disparities of the human lot, were as remarkable and as perplexing in the days of the Hebrew sage as in our own. And they were regarded by him, as by rational and religious observers in our own time, as instances of the working of physical and social laws imposed by the Author of nature himself. In the exercise of divinely entrusted powers, men gather together possessions and disperse them abroad. The rich and the poor exist side by side; and the wealthy are every day impoverished, whilst the indigent are raised to opulence. These are the lights and shades upon the landscape of life, the shifting scenes in life's unfolding drama. Variety and change are evidently parts of the Divine intention, and are never absent from the world of our humanity. V. THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ISSUES OF HUMAN LIFE BEAR MARKS OF DIVINE WISDOM AND ORDER. It cannot be the case that all the phases and processes of our human existence are to be apprehended simply in themselves, as if they contained their own meaning, and had no ulterior significance. Life is not a kaleidoscope, but a picture; not the promiscuous sounds heard when the instrumentalists are "tuning up," but an oratorio; not a chronicle, but a history. There is a unity and an aim in life; but this is not merely artistic, it is moral. We do not work and rest, enjoy and suffer, hope and fear, with no purpose to be achieved by the experiences through which we pass. He who has appointed "a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven," designs that we should, by toil and endurance, by fellowship and solitude, by gain and loss, make progress in the course of moral and spiritual discipline, should grow in the favor and in the likeness of God himself. - T.
To everything there is a season. The principle which Solomon asserts, and which is of extreme importance in all matters connected with our practical life in this world, is also of equal importance in religious matters. It is true of religion as of all other things, that in it too there is a time for all things, a time to be merry and a time to be sad; and moreover that true wisdom consists in regulating these times, not in leaving them to take their chance (so to speak), but in fixing seasons and periods as aids to the various religious feelings. Let me then bring under your notice a few points illustrative of the method which the Church adopts, a method which is the carrying into religion the principle of the text, cutting out our time, allotting to each portion its proper work, and so economizing the whole and guarding against waste and misuse. The first instance I shall take will be that of our observance of the Sunday. I ask myself — why is this day set apart as it is? and looking upon it not merely as a day of animal rest, but as a day of religious service, the reply is ready, that although men ought to serve God every day, yet they are more likely to remember their duty if a special day be set apart for the purpose; the Sunday, in fact, is a great practical call to worship God; the most thoughtless person cannot fail to have the duty of worship brought before him; no man can by possibility live in this country, and not know that prayer and praise are a duty; few men can have failed to have heard of Christ's Sacraments, however much they may have neglected them. The great truth also of the resurrection of the Lord, the great truth upon which all our own hopes of a resurrection depend, how completely and powerfully is that preached by this same institution! for Sunday is emphatically the feast of Christ's Resurrection. It is in strict accordance with this principle that the Church has attached a peculiar solemnity to the Friday. As Easter Day throws a light of joy upon all the Sundays in the year, so is it deemed right that the awful event of Good Friday should throw a shade of sadness upon all other Fridays; accordingly you will find the Friday marked in the Prayer-book as a day of fasting and abstinence. Is this a vain rule, a relic of Popery, a remnant of the Dark Ages? I think that sober, thoughtful Christians will not say so; for indeed there is nothing which will tend so much to Christianize the mind, if I may so speak, as to meditate upon the Passion of the Lord Christ. On the same principle we have certain days set apart for the commemoration of saints. The first founders of the kingdom of Christ, those to whose zeal and faithfulness we owe the preservation of the precious deposit of faith, are men to be kept ever in our minds as the great champions of God's noble army, whose faith we may well follow. It may be said that every Christian will have a grateful sense of the debt he owes to the apostles and martyrs of Christ; yea, but the question is whether the debt will not be discharged more punctually and more completely, if the work be arranged upon system, if a day be set apart for consideration of the character and works of this apostle, and another for that; in fact, if a person throws himself into the Church system and follows her mode of commemorating the saints, is it not to be expected that he will take a more complete view of the various characters and excellences of the apostles, than a man who acknowledged their excellence in general, but does not thus study them in detail? Take the Ember weeks as another example of the same principle. It is desirable that God's blessing should be invoked by the Church at large upon those who are ordained to the ministry, and upon whose faith and pure conversation so much of the prosperity of the Church depends; how can this great end be best secured? by appointing to the work its proper time. Once more, take the round of great festivals, which, beginning with Advent, terminate in Trinity Sunday. You cannot have failed to observe the manner in which the round of feasts brings before us all the great Christian doctrines; how the Church, preparing at first for the advent of Christ, exhibits Him to us as a babe in swaddling-clothes, then carries us up to His betrayal and death, His burial, His rising again, His ascension into heaven, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and then exhibits to us the full mystery of Godhead, the incomprehensible Three Persons in One God. Lastly, I will take as an example of the Church system the season of Lent. Its meaning may be briefly stated thus, it is the season of penitence. Season of penitence? a person may say, ought not all seasons to be seasons of penitence? Truly; but as there is a time for all things, so has penitence its special time; and the Church requires of us that for forty days before the Passion of Christ, we should meditate upon and grieve over the sins which caused His death. I think I need not say much to convince you of the wisdom of this appointment; if you were perfect, like the angels, you would not require such a season; there is no change of season in heaven, because the blessed spirits around God's throne have but one occupation, and that is to sing His praise; but in like manner "there is no night there," because, being freed from the burden of the flesh, there is to them no weariness; and just as in this world night is necessary for us, which has no existence in heaven, so on earth we may find help to our souls from those aids to our infirmity, which the Church on earth requires, but which the Church triumphant knows not.(Bp. Harvey Goodwin.) "Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it."What a miserable estimate of the grand existence of man on earth! What a gross misrepresentation of the lessons taught by God's works and ways! What a libel on the momentous revelations of the future world! What a noble answer to Gay's wretched falsehood Longfellow supplies in his "Psalm of Life"! How many souls have been stirred to action by its trumpet-call! How many true and brave lives have been lived in response to its appeal! I. THE REALITIES OF LIFE SURROUND US ALL. There are the realities of your calling; the duties connected with it, which you feel must be discharged in the most efficient manner possible; the responsibilities attaching to it, which perhaps in several ways are heavy; the temptations to swerve from the line of rectitude, and practise that which is mean and sinful; the worry and anxiety arising out of the keenness of competition, the sharp dealing and fraud of your fellow-men, and the uncertainties of all secular life. We are not to be slothful in our secular pursuits; if we are, we may as well give them up altogether; yet, at the same time, we should see that we have them all in subordination to our spiritual interests, and the life to come. Often the realities of life thicken around men while they are destitute of all preparation. They have failed to exercise forethought-neglected to make provision for the future. All previous periods of life have seen them unfaithful to themselves, to their opportunities, to their calling. You can never redeem what you have lost; but you may avoid losing more. It is of no use bemoaning the past. "Let the dead past bury its dead!" At once embrace the opportunities of the "living present." Forget the things which are behind, and reach towards the things which are before. II. HEARKEN TO THE WORD OF COUNSEL, AS TO THE WAY IS WHICH YOU SHOULD MEET THE REALITIES OF LIFE AND TURN THEM TO GOOD ACCOUNT. Cultivate earnestness of character. History furnishes us with some rare instances of earnest" purpose and endeavour — vigorous grappling with the realities of life, that should inspire us with enthusiasm. "I am doing a great work," said Nehemiah, while rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, "so that I cannot come down." "This one thing I do," exclaims the Apostle Paul. Minutius Aldus, a famous printer at Venice in the sixteenth century, had this significant inscription placed over the door of his office — "Whoever thou art, Aldus entreats thee again and again, if thou hast business with him, to conclude it briefly, and hasten thy departure: unless, like Hercules to the weary Atlas, thou come to put thy shoulder to the work, then will there ever he sufficient occupation for thee and all others who may come. In the diary of Dr. Chalmers, under the date of March 12th, 1812, there occurs this entry — "I am reading the life of Dr. Doddridge, and am greatly struck with the quantity of business which he put through his hands. O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements. .May I be strong in faith, instant in prayer, high in my sense of duty, and vigorous in the occupation of it! When I detect myself in unprofitable reverie, let me make an instant transition from dreaming to doing." I think it was Sir James Mackintosh who said that whenever he died, he should die with a host of unaccomplished purposes and unfinished plans in his brain. So every earnest man will leave behind him many a half-finished, and even many an unattempted work. Nevertheless, with a true and earnest heart we may complete some things — we may weave the threads of life into a fabric of varied use and beauty — and, like David of old, serve our generation by the will of God before we fall on sleep, and are laid among our fathers. Once more, nothing will so help you to deal with the realities of life as true religion. Do you possess it, and are you living under its influence? (W. Walters.) (H. Macmillan, D. D.) "Destiny!" What a word! Orthographically it is composed of seven parts, as if, in the use of the sacred number, "seven," it was intended, by its very structure, to express, to all ages, its profound significance — viz, sufficiency, fulness, completion, perfection! Such, indeed, is the sweeping import of the word "destiny." It means a state of things that is complete, perfect. It signifies that this world — with its empires that rise and fall — its marvellous incidents that are enacted by human wisdom, courage, strife and ambition — its generations that are born, that live and die — its joys and sorrows — its shifting seasons and rolling years: this earth, as it now exists, is under a management that is sufficient, perfect! — a management of which it can be said: "A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without notice" — that is, without permission and purpose! Destiny has a "Clock" — "a huge timepiece" which measures off the events in this fixed order of things. On its dial-plate is inscribed this world-wide truth: "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven." By what "Hand" is this "Clock of Destiny" wound up and managed in all its complicated machinery? In other words: What is the superintending power of this fixed order of things? One answer says: "Fatalism makes the pendulum oscillate, fitting cog to cog and wheel to wheel, controlling all the movements of the dial-gnomon." God is here given the go-by, while absolute necessity and fixed, cold, unconscious law are delegated with all power. Fatalism annihilates intelligence and free-will in the world's government. It declares that "Everything from a star to a thought; from the growth of a tree to a spasm of sorrow; from the coronation of a king to the falling of a sparrow is connected with and under the positive control of molecular force." In short, destiny's timepiece is wound up and kept in running order by a "hand" tuner divine! The third chapter of Ecclesiastes was written in the interest of the Divine Hand managing the "Clock of Destiny" — in other words, to teach the glorious doctrine of special providence. O ye priests "of science falsely so called," ye prophets of the "Unknowable," ye "wise men" who make law supreme and deify force — let the Hebrew sage teach you a better creed! Yea, ye, doubters, ye of unbelief, as to the doctrine of special providence in things great and small — listen to this: "God doeth!" not fate. His acts "shall be for ever," not of short duration but of eternal import. He is independent of all contingency — the wicked cannot frustrate the Almighty's purposes: "Nothing can be put to it and nothing can be taken from it." His government is for man's highest good — by each swing of the pendulum the Divine Father would move the race nearer to Himself: "And God doeth it that they should fear before Him." He is never surprised — nothing is new to Him, nothing old. He acts in the eternal Now. All things — past, present, future — are ever under His all-seeing eye: "That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been." It is, however, impossible for us now to understand all about the management of this "huge timepiece," which measures off the events great and small, in the fixed course of things. So says the author of my text in verse 11: "No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." But this shortsightedness, on our part, is no reason why we should question the wisdom of what is being done, or, in any way, withhold our confidence and love from God as a Father — who is ever doing for us "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." And, now, in view of the fact that "the Lord reigneth" — that the "Clock of Destiny" is God's machine, ever running in the interest of man's highest good — what should be our daily conduct and highest ambition? Let this third chapter of Ecclesiastes give us, in closing, an exhortation, as it has already imparted to us profound instruction. In ver. 12 let us read that it is our mission here "to do good" — in ver. 13, "to enjoy the good of all our labour," seeing that this is "the gift of God" — in vers. 16, 17, not to fret ourselves because of evil-doers, "for God shall judge the righteous and the wicked" — in vers. 18-21, not to be disheartened or over-mournful because of death, for though "that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts" — all coming from and going to the same place — "dust": yet "there is a spirit in man that goeth upwards." He is immortal, and hence can say: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Finally, vers. 22, "Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in all his works." Do good and rejoice in that good — this is man's duty! Scatter sunbeams to expel darkness — build up blazing fires to warm and cheer the cold, weary and worn! Be kind — be charitable — save your neighbour from tears, groans, heartaches! Swell the refrain of merry Christmas carols! Ring out the bells of New Year greeting! "Rejoice ever-morel"(A. H. Moment, D. D.) People SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Activity, Appointed, Business, Delight, Event, Fixed, Heaven, Heaven-, Heavens, Matter, Purpose, SeasonOutline 1. by the necessary change of times, vanity is added to human travail11. is an excellence in God's works 16. as for man, God shall judge his works hereafter, though here he be like a beast Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 3:1 4903 time Library Eternity in the Heart'He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also He hath set the world in their heart.'--ECCLES. iii. 11. There is considerable difficulty in understanding what precise meaning is to be attached to these words, and what precise bearing they have on the general course of the writer's thoughts; but one or two things are, at any rate, quite clear. The Preacher has been enumerating all the various vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity, of construction and destruction, of society and solitude, … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture 'A Time to Plant' For what Christian Men of Our Time Being Free from the Marriage Bond... But Thou who Both Hast Sons, and Livest in that End of the World... Letter xxvi. (Circa A. D. 1127) to the Same The Conclusion of the Matter Of Self-Annihilation Introductory Note. The Lapse of Time. "For they that are after the Flesh do Mind," How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished. The Holy War, A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox. "Who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. 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